Abortion foes keeping low profile this year

Even though there is strong political incentive for anti-abortion groups in Florida to aggressively promote their agenda this spring, the opposite is happening.

The potential that Democrat Charlie Crist could win this fall’s election against Republican Gov. Rick Scott could be expected to motivate the anti-abortion groups to push for as much they can get while the GOP controls the Legislature and the governor’s office. Crist has made clear at campaign events that he supports abortion rights.

But more than halfway through the Florida Legislature’s annual session, fewer bills dealing with abortion have been filed this year than in the past. Of those that have been filed, just two are moving.

Wednesday was the first time any bill had made it to the floor of one of the Legislature’s chambers specifically dealing with abortion-related issues, as the House started debate on a pair of measures championed by groups advocating for more abortion restrictions.

Given the wave of state-level abortion restrictions that have been passed in other Republican-led states, abortion rights advocates say they are almost shocked at how tame the Florida Legislature has been.

“We would have thought Florida would have followed that path,” said Elizabeth Nash, an analyst with the Guttmacher Institute, a national nonprofit group that supports abortion rights.

Anti-abortion groups say they are employing a selective approach this year.

“Yes, we have just a few bills, but are very focused on those few bills,” explained Rachel Burgin, executive director of Florida Right to Life and a former state representative.

Again, it’s about the governor’s race.

Though Scott has supported increasing abortion restrictions increased abortion restrictions in the past, GOP leaders in the Legislature are trying to avoid sending bills on such hot-button social issues to his desk. The concern is that such legislation could charge up abortion rights advocates or alienate parts of the electorate that Scott needs, said Darryl Paulson, professor emeritus of government at the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg.

“They do not want to do anything that could provide aid and comfort to Charlie Crist or hurt the re-election efforts of Scott in any way,” Paulson said.

The contrast between this year and Scott’s first year in office is striking. In 2011, Scott’s first as governor, the House had eight major abortion-restriction bills filed, and four made it to the governor’s desk for his signature, including one requiring women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound at their expense before having the procedure.

Scott signed that bill and four others in a ceremony after the session. But this year, Paulson said that type of bill would only risk creating a public blowback that would hurt Scott in a state that he barely won in 2010.

Even with a Tea Party wave, Scott won Florida in 2010 by just 1 percent of the vote — 61,550 votes out of more than 5 million.

Looking at state abortion restrictions passed over the last three decades, Nash said it’s not unusual to see a drop in legislative activities in even years, when more lawmakers face re-election. In 2011, the Guttmacher Institute said states combined to enact more than 92 abortion restriction laws. A year later, that fell to 43. Last year, an odd-numbered year, the number jumped again to more than 70.

Legislation elsewhere

Other conservative states show where the Florida Legislature could have gone this year.

Texas and Virginia both passed new standards for abortion clinics that are forcing many of them to close. In Arizona and Texas, new restrictions were placed on abortion medications.

Burgin, the Florida Right to Life director, acknowledges there are more aggressive routes to take, but said there are pitfalls to that approach, too.

“We don’t want to get bogged down in the court system like some of those other states are,” Burgin said.

She said the goal in Florida is to aim for more certain bills that further restrict the prevalence of abortions, but don’t lead to months or years of legal battles.

“In this case, less really is more,” Burgin said.

In Florida, attempts to mimic what lawmakers in Texas and Virginia have been doing have not gotten very far. In the Florida House, Rep. Charles Van Zant, a Republican from Clay County in North Florida, filed two pieces of legislation that would ban the operation of abortion clinics in Florida and bar the use of abortion-inducing medications.

“The Legislature finds that all human life comes from the Creator, has an inherent value that cannot be quantified by man, and begins at the earliest biological development of a fertilized human egg,” Van Zant’s bills state.

But neither have been heard in committee, making it unlikely for them to reach the floor for a vote.

The two bills that are moving include House Bill 59, which would change state law to allow prosecutors to charge someone with a second murder or crime if an unborn child at “any stage of development” is killed or injured. Currently, prosecutors can only charge someone for a second murder or crime if a fetus is declared viable.

That bill, and a similar companion bill in the Senate, have cleared all of their necessary committees and now awaits a vote in the full House and full Senate. An identical bill must pass both chambers to advance to the governor.

Another bill supported by Florida Right to Life advocates is HB 1047 and its Senate companion, SB 819. They would change when abortions are prohibited — now at 24 weeks — to when a fetus is deemed viable by a physician. That could be as early as 20 weeks.

While abortion rights groups oppose those bills, neither is considered as extreme as what has been coming out of other statehouses, said Nash, the analyst with the Guttmacher Institute.

Nash said 40 other states already have already passed bills similar to HB 59.

“What probably is most surprising is that it hasn’t happened in Florida yet,” Nash said.

Jeremy Wallace

Jeremy Wallace has covered politics for more than 15 years.
He can be reached by email or call (941) 361-4966.
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Last modified: April 9, 2014
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